Despite dire stories about electric vehicles no longer selling in the United States, 2023 was the year more than 1 million EVs were sold here. Cox Automotive forecasts electric vehicles will account for more than 10% of total sales in 2024. But, said Cox, “dealers and manufacturers alike are realizing that selling more EVs will require more effort.”

Have questions about what that effort may entail? The National Automobile Dealers Association has your back via the “EV Solutions Center” portion of this year’s NADA Show in Las Vegas. Here are some of the EV-related sessions being offered.

The “Valuing Electric Vehicles for Successful Buying and Selling” session will introduce how determining residual value for EVs differs from ICE vehicle and how those residual values will evolve. Scott Case, CEO of Recurrent, which produces battery health reports for used EVs, and Jared Kalfus, president of used-vehicle data and valuation giant Black Book, are the speakers.

The “Watt’s the Deal with EVs?” session will offer insights on how dealers can establish their dealership as the go-to EV resource in their community and also offer tips on digital marketing optimization and preparing your sales team to answer all those EV-specific questions. Speakers are Amie Lindass, director of research and insights at Cars.com and Jenni Newman, editor and chief at Cars.com, an automotive industry digital marketplace and solutions provider.

The “ASE Electrified Propulsion Vehicles High-Voltage Electrical Safety Standards” sessions includes speaker Corey Glassman, Electric Vehicle safety consultant at ASE, the National Institute for Automotive Safety Excellence.

Sound like a dry topic? Think again! Developing and maintaining a safe work environment including an EV team with the proper skill set is crucial for dealerships.

Don’t mess with high voltage electric vehicle batteries. Oh, and they are really heavy, so besides the risk of electrocution there’s the risk of throwing your back way out of whack.

During a session on “The State of EV Adoption,” K.C. Boyce, vice president and sector lead, powertrain innovation & energy transformation at market research firm Escalent will discuss where the EV market is going in 2024 and why some customers buy EVs and others avoid them.

Escalent tracks such information through proprietary tools such as its EVForward Market Profile and EVForward Score, which identifies the next generation of EV buyers.

Next up is “Make More Profit with EV Sales.” Dealers are facing an influx of EV inventory and a new wave of buyers who are less EV-knowledgeable than the first adopter wave. Kyle Connor, EVSE evangelist and board member at Powerfull Recharge, a group of specialists within the EV charging supply, control and distribution sector, will impart answers to questions about charging, range, where people are charging and how dealers can be part of that.

The event also includes a session on “Selling EVs: How to Compete with Tesla.” As we all know, Tesla sells online, directly to the consumers. But studies show that consumers still want to go into a dealership, especially when buying a vehicle with new technology such as an EV.

Matt Teske, brand builder and founder and CEO of Chargeway, a software solution platform to improve the customer experience, will discuss how to quickly evaluate your consumer’s lifestyle to understand how to pitch EVs to that customer and how your showroom can compete with brands such as Tesla.

“Tesla understands that for electric vehicles (EVs) the primary difference a driver needs to trust is how to use electricity as a fuel,” Teske told Auto Remarketing.

“Once an EV is charged up the functionality of it is essentially the same as a gas car in that it becomes reliable transportation. But electricity comes in different power levels and can be found in a variety of locations, including at home, so knowing how to explain this aspect of EV ownership is crucial to closing an EV sale at any dealership.”